Dollars & Dope

Aljunied lunch $5 flat with the Uncle’s 30c discount for a regular who had prompted for promotion price. It was about time wasn’t it, Unc?... Bee hoon noodles were they? tatters, mock beef and bok choy with lotus soup. Man would have been robbing his grandchildren offering any less. En route around the corner by the lane and the hardware store “Embroidered Brows” at the electrified dazzling special price of $168 ONLY. The hairdresser offering was named Pop Pop. (Tattooed were for the HDB have-nots; presumably the offering at City Plaza currently for $6.) This superior and more proper knitting no doubt lasted three times longer; five and ten times would not surprise. The Chinese in particular suffered for the lack of brows. Ladies gained with lesser facial and underarm, but the brows were important for photography in particular. Tinting too added definition. Chap clearing the plates there below the MRT missing the teeth would not deny the term he had spent at Changi. Half-dozen meetings now, plates returned under one’s own steam, permission given trying the panama—there was a certain rapport established. The long pipe was it Uncle?... Too right, the man replied, only the faintest blanching at the confession. Corroborated too was the half metre length; the long, satisfying draw described, and the smoke outta the nostrils. Thirty-five, forty years experience of Users down in the Great Southern Land was needed in order to pick ordinary Joes with very few outward signs. With the growing liberalization they were going to be shown up here before long, the Justice Minister and all the rest of the hard deniers all these years later after all the hangings and incarceration. What if the industry now really took off? Canada, Australia, Uruguay and the others stealing a march? Thailand was making noises in today’s paper and neighbouring Malaysia too. With all the experience of the dens and hot trade in the recent past, letting late-comers leap ahead would grate here. Was science and research to be denied? What if under regs. and for medical treatment and rec. use there were big, mouthwatering $$$$$ to be made? Could the little red dot hot spot sit back on its heels arms crossed holding to out-dated principles?... One was reminded of the poor Indian lady at KV, whose son returning from OZ being a convicted felon (possession) was tested and immediately thrown into prison. Five days later the leaf was still detectable. Change was in the wind.

NB. A homage to Tom Pynchon and his generation rather than anything else. This author has always happily done without.